A tourist couple sits on the steps of the closed Smithsonian national air and space museum in Washington. Photograph: Shawn Thew/EPA

The US government shut down at midnight Tuesday for the first time in nearly two decades. As thousands of workers await news of their essential-or-not employment status, many ‘non-essential’ government services were shutdown: national parks, monuments, even Nasa. By Tuesday morning, the first signs of the government shutdown began to surface on social media, in the form of tweets from the agencies themselves

The social media accounts for several government agencies – from Nasa to the US army – posted 'away' messages, because their federal minders had been deemed non-essential to the workings of US government.

Asteroid Watch (@AsteroidWatch)

To clarify: Many observatories, astronomers are watching the skies. Updated list of Near-Earth objects at http://t.co/mGzjwg6zQm

And for those of you hoping to use the downtime for a study break, the pursuit of knowledge will have to wait:

What are people doing?

This is an unexpected break for a lot of government workers, and in previous shutdowns, they’ve always been paid. But they're scaling back the services they provide starting today. Some examples: the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is working with a reduced staff and is not tracking outbreaks of flu and influenza and the National Institutes of Health will treat patients but will not begin any new clinical trials.

Meanwhile, those workers deemed ‘essential’ are actually facing long lines to actually get into work:

But what about those ‘non-essential’ workers?

In a happy turn of events, the shutdown coincided with the release of Grand Theft Auto online. Coincidence?

Charles Howe (@chuckhowe78)

Due to the government shutdown, I will be drinking and playing GTA V. If anyone needs a handyman or yard work, hit a ginger up.